Popular smoking articles, such as cigarettes, typically have a substantially cylindrical rod shaped structure and include a charge, roll, or column of smokable material such as shredded tobacco (e.g., in cut filler form) surrounded by a paper wrapper thereby forming a so-called “smokable rod” or “tobacco rod.” Normally, a cigarette has a cylindrical filter element aligned in an end-to-end relationship with the tobacco rod. Typically, a filter element comprises cellulose acetate tow plasticized using a plasticizer such as triacetin, and the tow is circumscribed by a paper material known as “plug wrap.”
The filter element may be attached to one end of the tobacco rod using a circumscribing wrapping material known as “tipping paper,” in order to provide a so-called “filtered cigarette.” More particularly, the filter element may be attached to the tobacco rod using tipping material (e.g., essentially air impermeable tipping paper), that circumscribes at least a portion of both the filter element and the tobacco rod. The inner surface of the tipping material may be fixedly secured to the outer surface of the plug wrap circumscribing the filter tow and the outer surface of the wrapping material/paper wrapper surrounding the smokable material of the tobacco rod, using a suitable adhesive. Accordingly, the filter element and the tobacco rod are connected to one another. The adhesive may also function to secure the overlapping ends of the tipping material circumscribing the filter element and tobacco rod. The tipping material and plug wrap may be perforated in order to provide dilution of drawn mainstream smoke with ambient air.
In any instance, as-formed cigarettes may be typically provided to a cigarette packaging apparatus, where the as-formed cigarettes are loaded into a package or otherwise suitable container. Thus, the cigarettes may be packaged into cigarette packages in an automated manner. However, during automated packaging of cigarettes, certain defects may occur. It follows that, due to the high speed nature of the cigarette packaging process, many of the defects that may occur may not be readily apparent or otherwise detected before the completed cigarette package is offered for sale. As such, defects may not be discovered until a retailer receives the cigarette package or a consumer purchases the cigarette package. Such a situation is generally undesirable to the perception of the quality of the product, regardless of the actual quality of the cigarettes packaged therein. As such, there exists a need for an apparatus and method for inspecting smoking article packages configured to hold smoking articles, such as filtered cigarettes, in order to identify any defects prior to the products being distributed or sold. It may also be desirable for such a solution to be readily implemented with respect to existing cigarette packaging machinery.